


you can't stop what's coming

by Mononoke



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mononoke/pseuds/Mononoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d thought, back at the start of all this, it’d be a one time thing. Whatever’s necessary to survive: shoot a guy, cut ‘em deep, feel their windpipe crumple in his grip – do it once and maybe he’d go numb. </p>
<p>It doesn’t really work out that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't stop what's coming

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [giveaway](http://fuckyeahthelastofus.tumblr.com/post/31130267422/alright-guys-so-we-all-know-the-tlou-swag-at-pax) over at [Fuck Yeah The Last of Us](http://fuckyeahthelastofus.tumblr.com/); thanks again for running it. :) 
> 
> I've never written fic for something that hasn't yet been released, so this was a fun experience. 
> 
> Title borrowed from _No Country for Old Men_.

He’d thought, back at the start of all this, it’d be a one time thing. Whatever’s necessary to survive: shoot a guy, cut ‘em deep, feel their windpipe crumple in his grip – do it once and maybe he’d go numb.

It doesn’t really work out that way.

Twenty years of washing blood off his hands and still he finds it under his fingernails sometimes, refusing to budge. Twenty years of living kill or be killed and still there’s this tiny part of him, in the seconds before a fight, that realises _holy shit Joel this is a_ person _trying to survive just like you_. Then the first punch lands and he stops thinking like that.

He keeps the pieces he cut out of himself in a box somewhere, out of sight out of mind.

He needs to be this way if he wants to survive.

 

Ellie … isn’t what he expects. She wears attitude like armour and snark drips from her tongue. She’s not desperate to stay in the safe zone like most her age; she’s not afraid of him. She asks him about the movie posters on the sides of bus stops and Joel grits his teeth because she has no idea how much he misses those dumb things. She knows how to react to a threat, can keep her head in life or death situations, but for someone who’s grown up in such a verdant hellscape she’s incredibly trusting.

Ellie sees a man stumbling in the road and thinks of helping him.

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

Joel slams his car into someone. He sets a man on fire. Ellie recoils as the body crunches against the grille. She sounds horrified over the flames.

 

Ellie goes quiet sometimes. He’ll come back from washing his hands clean to find her staring at the fire, a frown darkening her features, and in those moments she looks so much older than she rightfully should. It makes something twist inside Joel, sharp as glass and just as cutting.

Nightmares don’t stop, they just change form, and he’s had more than his share. It’s too late to save her from them completely, but he can still try. What’s one more hopeless cause?

So he tries to talk. Tells her about the stupid movie that poster was advertising, about how the one that came a few years earlier was better. Asks what her favourite song is this week and mentions some of his. Shares what he knows about the area they’re in and where they’re headed. Sometimes she talks back, sarcastic or curious or melancholic, running away with the conversation; other times she doesn’t. Her face usually looks brighter, though.

If that’s all he’ll get Joel will gladly take it.

 

That tiny part of him that won’t let him forget his humanity? It sounds more like Ellie every day.

 

Joel’s back is pressed against the wall. From the room behind him comes the pounding of feet, the high-pitched squeals and guttural shrieks of the creatures. More than one of ‘em. Shit. He looks to Ellie, sees the knife already held firmly in her hands. She nods. Joel raises the revolver, pulls the hammer back. Holds his breath.

He keeps the pieces he cut out of himself – _keeps cutting out_ – in a box somewhere, out sight (not quite) out of mind.

He probably won’t survive. Joel’s made his peace with that.

But maybe if he does he can take those shards of himself, look them over, see if they’re worth piecing back together.

Maybe Ellie will know what to do with them.


End file.
